Was Fraternity Falsely Accused Of Spitting On Veterans As Part Of Plan To End Spring Break In PCB?

When the Zeta Beta Tau chapter at the University of Florida was accused of spitting on wounded veterans and urinating on American flags during a spring break retreat in Panama City Beach, the world was quick to condemn both the brothers and the existence of fraternities as a whole. The brothers were eventually found innocent of the heinous crimes, but the damage was already done. In the weeks following the allegations, the chapter was shut down and some brothers were expelled. Even worse, members feared for their lives. The chapter received over 70 death threats, and one veteran even camped outside of their house.

After an investigation conducted by the PCB Police Department, the ZBT nationals, and the University of Florida, the brothers were found guilty of popping a bottle of champagne on a balcony, causing some of the liquid to spill onto a party of veterans below. But Linda Cope, founder of Warrior Beach Retreat, told reporters at a press conference following the champagne spillage that the veterans in her party were spat on and brutally harassed by the brothers.

But why would Linda Cope craft a lie so harmful to the lives of innocent young men? And why would Panama City Beach allow such egregious and outright false claims to be made?

Evidence suggests the ZBT incident may have been falsified as part of a broader scheme to abolish college spring break from the city. By weaving spilled champagne into a tale of spitting on wounded veterans, the city could make a better case for removing college spring breakers, a plan that would open up their beaches to higher-paying customers.

During the PCB City Council meeting on July 11, a resident named Clay Musgrave took the podium to discuss how the fraternity brothers became innocent victims of the city agenda. Musgrave cites an article from the Gainesville Sun, noting PCB media would not report the truth.

“Investigations conducted by both the Panama City Beach Police Department and the University of Florida confirm no evidence of disrespect or harmful or offensive conduct towards any of the veterans that weekend, but that doesn’t matter to abolitionists,” he says. “We were told by a recent transplant to PCB in an attempt to justify the abolition of college spring break that ‘snowbirds tip more than spring breakers.’”

The video of Musgrave speaking at the council meeting can be found here at the 15:00 to 18:00 minute mark. By “snowbirds” he means retirees who migrate to the south wishing to avoid the snow and cold temperatures of the northern winter — retirees with fatter wallets than typical college spring breakers.

The ban of alcohol on PCB beaches is not only the first step towards rebranding the destination as a shoreline retirement community, but it will help to mend Florida’s bruised image in the public eye. The state’s reputation as a Mecca for rowdiness and debauchery has made it the brunt of internet memes and ridicule, like this recent list which ranks Florida dead last in comparison to the other states, or the popular “Florida Man!” page on Reddit.

Cope and the Warrior Beach Retreat benefitted from the lie, too. Ridding PCB of college kids has made the location more suitable for wounded vets. She’s also raked in a ton of pity cash by splashing her organization’s name on headlines across the nation. While raising money for wounded vets is a beautiful thing, demonizing innocent college kids for an atrocity they did not commit is far from the best way to go about it.

Let’s look at how Cope went about accusing the UF chapter of ZBT. The Emory University chapter of ZBT was also staying at the hotel at the time of the incident. Cope accused both chapters of the crimes. When no evidence was found, Cope was asked by The Emory Wheel if she would still like an apology from the Emory University chapter.

“Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t participate, but I’d rather err on the side of caution.”

The Emory University chapter of ZBT did not take the bait and issue an apology. The chapter from the University of Florida did. Cope now had a smokescreen of forced apology to hide behind.

So, why did the UF chapter apologize while the Emory chapter did not? Because ZBT nationals forced them to. ZBT nationals told the chapter if they apologized, the national organization would do everything in their power to protect them. Instead, they threw the innocent young men to the wolves and pinned them for the entirety of the false allegations.

From an op-ed about the false allegations in The Washington Post by Jared Blinderman, a member of the UF chapter of ZBT:

But the university and ZBT forced our chapter to immediately issue a public apology to the woman who had accused us, effectively ending our ability to defend ourselves against these false allegations.

Our chapter was suspended, and then closed, by both the university and ZBT before their investigations were complete.

Witnessing the tears and anguish of my brothers at the moment school officials clarified that our chapter had been officially closed was indescribably painful.

ZBT leaders sent an e-mail to every chapter in the nation titled, “The acts of a few do not represent the sentiments of the many” and called our conduct “despicable.”

This was a far cry from their earlier promises to us that if we cooperated, we would be protected. We were comforted to know ZBT had hired an investigator and a public relations firm, only to later discover they were protecting ZBT, not us.

Both Cope and ZBT nationals had found their scapegoat. ZBT nationals could protect themselves by allocating all of the misconduct to one chapter. Cope could get her money and lead the charge towards ridding the city of college spring breakers.

We aren’t the first to call Cope out for her lies, either. Marc Nolen, a former marine, says Cope’s false accusations go against what he served our country for.

“Linda’s group does a great cause, and actually, I’ve helped them in the past and as a marine myself I think what really upset me the most was those young kids down there that really weren’t really given the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ part and that’s what I served our country for,” said Nolen.

I leave you with this: Go-Pro footage of the ZBT chapter from the University of Florida playing on a makeshift slip-n-slide with members of the Warrior Beach Retreat. The footage, provided by Craig Blinderman (the father of Jared Blinderman) and shot by Mikhail Cunill, a brother of UF ZBT, was captured on April 18, the day after the brothers allegedly spat on the veterans they are seen having fun with. The man with tattoos on the slide is a member of the Warrior Beach Retreat, Blinderman says.

Neither Cope nor ZBT nationals have issued an apology to the chapter..

Phi Psi was a shoddy attempt at investigative journalism of a fictitious rape that had apparently happened a year ago. ZBT was a sort of next day news thing without any investigation having occurred. I’m not saying one or the other didn’t have it as bad, but Florida ZBT was literally in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Boosh, do me a favor and dig up Cope’s email address? I have some choice words I’d love to share with her. Purely to expand her vocabulary of course. Maybe that way she might have the ability to make truthful comments to the media.

I stand behind the men whose lives were ruined by the false accusations by Ms. Cope. Given that she blatantly slandered these young men on national television, I am sure there will be lawsuits against her by both private parties and institutions. The saddest thing is that it may bankrupt the Warrior Beach Retreat, which would hurt the greatest Americans of all, combat veterans. I say sue Ms. Cope, have her removed from her position, and then use a lot of that money to fund the Warrior Beach Retreat under different leadership.

I agree it reminded me of the UVA bullshit also. Fraternities can fuck up im not disputing that. But these yellow page narratives that get people hysterical and sell papers can be smelled out as bullshit a mile a way by someone who reacts with logic and not emotion

After this happened every website that reported the incident had a link to donate to copes pity fund. Also ZBT nationals sent out one of the saddest, most pathetic emails I have ever read. Nationals claimed to shut down the chapter to protect the uf brothers despite other Florida chapters receiving the same threats. It just shows nationals doesn’t care about you and will abandon their credo and values that the organization stands for when trying to save face.

what’s a shame is a lot of these veteran organizations claim to be raising so much money to helped our wounded war fighters but instead pocket a lot of the money raised while only a few pennies on the dollar are actually used to help the veterans they claim to stand for. this was seen by a few as an opportunistic moment for a cash grab. from my experience with greek life and the veteran community is that greeks hold our vets in high regard and dedicate a lot of their charity and community service to them. even in an absolute blackout drunken state ive seen greeks come across vets and show them respect and courtesy regardless of the state of their sobriety.

I knew this story was fabricated as soon as that slut Cope demanded that the only apology she would accept would be in the form of ZBT’s formal money allotment going directly to her charity the following year. As soon as she said that, I knew it was all for publicity, using ZBT as the whipping boy.

The fact that these boys have to go to a “hearing” to see if they get their chapter back is unreal. Never thought I’d see the day a national director shuts down his alma mater. ZBT nationals is a joke.

don’t care about votes or laps, but can anyone tell us what the current uf zbt stays is?

I’d assume with all this coming out, nationals would do their best by them, as would the university, but i haven’t been able to find anything stating that they have been reinstated or given an apology.

So what we have here is yet another national media headline that falsely crucified Greek life in general, and individuals in specific, and there will likely be no consequences or reparations as a result.

My two cents: certain organizations have historically hidden behind the guise of “but it’s for the vets”. Sounds like Ms. Cope used this as a launching point. She probably has a history with not approving of fraternal organizations and used this as a chance to take her jab. I don’t want to speculate and I won’t. This wasn’t an instance of pissing in Barton Springs in front of a church social. This was slander. And, truth be told, most of those vets have probably done worse when they were in the service. Before I was out of initial entry training, we had a guy get fucked up by the bouncers at a strip club for bringing in his own liquor. TL;DR? Fuck Ms. Cope, I hope the fraternity doesn’t get hurt and I hope the troops had a good time.